- Popular Stories: 30 reputation
- Community Favorites: 60 reputation
- Pillars of the Community: 50 reputation
Once stories reach certain levels of popularity measured by the reputation of their first post, they will get promoted first to the Popular Stories and then to the Community Favorites board. Stories that reach those thresholds will receive a public shoutout in the Book Club and get a congratulatory message from one of our moderators or admins that will immediately push it to the top of the new board it is in. The author of that story will receive a special title for reaching these milestones.
Guests are only able to read the first post of each topic in the Popular Stories board. To read the story in its entirety, they will have to register. If a story is finished after the first post, part of that first post will be hidden for guests by the Hide-BBcode. Registered users can access the Popular Stories like any other board with the exception that they can't create new topics here. All new stories start in the Public Stories board and are then moved here upon reaching the reputation threshold.
The Community Favorites board is only accessible to Pillars of the Community, users that have contributed to the community by having posted stories or feedback for stories that the community deemed worthy of reputation points. The current thresholds for a story being classified as Popular or a Community Favorite and a user becoming a Pillar of the Community can be seen at the beginning of this post. Please note that we might adjust these values as we gain experience with the reputation system. Especially immediately after the launch of the forum, these values are little more than guesses that will most certainly be changed over time. However, I do promise that we will never demote a user or a story even if the thresholds are raised above their current levels.